Sleepy Android Face

She had a sleepy android face,

forlorn of a world more fists

that spirits, more blade than halo.

Her long dark hair was straight,

and the barest protection from

the rain and the gun.

A leather jacket that been through

the war, stiff and dry and hard,

kept her metal and lightning heart

pounding in her thin but strong chest.

The jeans and boots would keep her name

secret from the demons crawling in her skin.

The rain was the empty words of God,

promise cleanliness, but just making you cold.

The demons came in through the eye, even,

especially, for the pious. All youth and tender innocence

to be sucked dry and picked clean, the demons

arming the men goodly for the job.

Her sleepy android face was still, and sad,

and tears of saltwater or maybe glycerin came,

and a warm place was hollowed out in Athena’s shoulder,

that brass statue up in The Fort, were ruin looks on the river.

That warm place, big enough for one, would shelter her.

For demons are in flesh, and the making of flesh for newborns.

Don’t touch, and The Demons can’t get you.

Laying On My Back, Looking Up

My lover is asleep inside.

It’s a cold Autumn night.

So many stars above me.

So many stars.

Looking for a streak of light.

A bolt across the darkness.

An alien craft from a far off world.

Come down for me.

My lover sleeps. I am empty.

The passion calms no demons.

Same hunger makes me tired.

Sex is evil.

I lay on my back, look up.

All those infinite worlds.

A better world out there.

Come down for me.

To All Wishes Spent

Mermaids know freedom, deep in dreaming waters.

Know a secret star, a childlike god, for their children.

In the sea that fills the stars with desire and lust,

and a touch of grace in the things so distant

A song that sweetens the desire to leave for the sky

and wash away the face we are bound to in a home harbor.

Out of the corner of our hearts they slip into dark depths

and cannot be touched or captured or brought to the sun.

Without form, without birth, without the bones tied to death,

hearts full of wine and silver threads counting down to dawn.

I can see her swimming somewhere past the bow, as stars weep,

and a memory goes from bleeding to only shedding gold on my palm.

Mermaids know freedom, and I know loss and shame and regret,

chasing after those mermaids, to the end of my days, to all wishes spent.

Turmoil For Skin

Pure hunger, looking at her.
Pure desire, the want to touch her.
To kiss her neck. Bury my face in her hair.
To smell the warm clean scent of her skin.
To taste her pale, rose petal lips.
To touch every part of her.
To know her body and it’s secrets.

She stands at the bar, laughing and smoking,
unaware that I am watching, what I’m feeling.
Those dark and tight clothes, that wicked laugh.
The desire comes unbidden, impossible to push away.
Racing heart, so much need, so much turmoil for skin.
She is svelte and strong and exudes passion and power.
I feel helpless in my desire to have her, to gaze upon her.

 I force myself to look away. I force myself to watch my beer bubble.
Even if I could have her, these whims are cruel and merciless.
The skin and meat that enchants me so easily, that drives me on.
Always wanting these pretty things, to know the pleasures of them.
Passion that breaks me, that curdles in me, that blinds me so.
I look again, so raptured at her, and wish it wasn’t so.
Wishing I could move past animal need and pleasures instinct,
to see only the light that is the heart of a woman.